Yoga, Beer And Cake

Yoga, beer and cake: that pretty much sums up my weekend! Let’s go into a little more detail, shall we?

Yoga:

I had heard about the incredible Faith Hunter coming to teach a class in Frederick this past Saturday a while ago, but had completely forgotten about it. I saw a reminder about it on a friend’s Facebook page on Friday and decided that it was something that I should definitely attend! I remember wanting to take a class with Faith last time she taught in Frederick, but wasn’t able to make it. I’ve watched a few of her videos before on YouTube, and she’s just as talented as she is beautiful!

The class was put together by Sol Yoga and held in a large room in a church downtown. It was called Food, Friends and Faith and proceeds were to benefit Food and Friends, which is an amazing organization (and something that Faith herself is very passionate about).

When I arrived to the class, everyone’s mats pretty much filled up the entire room! I found a spot smack in the middle and laid my mat down. At the start of class, Faith had us all gather in close and told us that we would be dedicating our practice to forgiveness. She shared stories about offering forgiveness in her own life, and why we should not only be able to forgive others, but more importantly, ourselves. Heavy thoughts for a Saturday morning.

The practice itself began around 11:00 and ended at 12:30. It was unlike any other yoga class I’ve ever taken. I really tried to focus on myself the entire time, and not think about other events going on in my life, what else I had to do over the weekend or what others were doing around me. My mind tends to wander, but I was able to keep it controlled pretty well. Faith is extremely down to earth and has a great sense of humor, and it was easy to see how passionate she is about teaching yoga. And, she also kicked our butts! There were several poses that I couldn’t get into, and others that made my quads burn like crazy (like holding chair forever…), but I was tickled when she had us doing walking planks (love those!).

It was such a great experience and I can’t wait to take a class from her again!

Beer:

My friend Rob (hi, Rob!) came up with the best idea ever: a beer advent calendar! I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather count down the days until Christmas with a delicious beer rather than a piece of hard, plastic-y milk chocolate. I told Greg about the beer advent calendar, and we immediately agreed that this was something that we needed to do. The idea is to drink a different beer each day up until Christmas day. I realize that this may not sound like the healthiest initiative in the world- but I’m talking about sharing one beer between the two of us. Nothing crazy.

We already had a few different beers in the fridge and went over to the Frederick Wine House (where you can buy a single of any beer) to stock up on the rest. And here’s what we ended up with:

As you can see, not all of the beers are seasonal. We chose a few winter/Christmas ales, but otherwise just picked out stuff that looked good. Hooray for craft beer!

We began the month with a bottle of Full Sail “Wreck the Halls” and will end with the very last bottle of our IPA on Christmas Day. I haven’t tried about 2/3 of the beers in the advent calendar, so I’m excited to see how they taste!

I filled out a calendar with the name of each beer on the day that we plan on drinking it. Of course, we may have to switch some things around depending on if it totally does not go with dinner or if we’re just not in the mood for it that day, but all 25 will be consumed.

Our wine fridge doubles as a nice advent calendar container!

We actually took the bottle of Wreck the Halls to a friend’s house for a party on Saturday night. I ended up only having a few sips of it, because they had this fantastic food/liquor pairing set up:

(Photo from the host, Jon)

Genius! I’m definitely going to copy this idea in the future, because it was so simple yet so impressive. Three of the pairings were savory bites and the last two were COOKIES. Surprisingly, my favorite cocktail was one made with gin (which I usually hate!) pineapple and basil. It was a such a fun night and we met some great new friends!

Cake:

To be specific, the cake(s) I’m referring to were of this variety:

Can you guess what that is? It’s birthday cake for my two special boys who turned three yesterday! It’s hard to believe, because only yesterday they looked like this:

Awwwww….

Because I am a crazy dog lady and spoil my guys like crazy, I’ve had cakes for them each year on their birthday. I spent some ridiculous amount of money on one for their first birthday, but then figured out how inexpensive and easy it would be to make my own. I made them each their own cake last year, and they loved it!

This year, I ground up dehydrated chickpeas to make chickpea flour and combined that with egg and pumpkin puree for the cakes. The frosting is a combination of peanut butter, ripe bananas and pumpkin puree. I had no desire to try the cake, but the frosting was actually delicious. I even got super fancy and cut the cakes in half to add a layer of frosting in the middle. I also spelled out the first letter of each of their names with dog food.

As you can see, Jackson and Lance were extremely excited to eat their cakes.

I am glad I can bring an element of unhealthy to the blog! I figured if I had to decide between having a cookie or a beer each day I’m totally going for the beer, I feel it’s got to have more redeeming qualities than candy… somehow. Happy birthday to the boys, they are ADORABLE!!